Foster had a deeply poetic soul, and would go into the wildest ecstasy over a pretty melody or a bit of rich harmony. There is a certain vein of tender retrospect in nearly all his songs. Take _Old Dog Tray_, of which a hundred and twenty-five thousand copies were sold the first eighteen months after publication. There is something exceedingly tender about it:-- "The morn of life is past, and ev'ning comes at last, It brings me a dream of a once happy day, Of merry forms I've seen upon the village green, Sporting with my old dog Tray. Old dog Tray's ever faithful, Grief cannot drive him away, He's gentle, he is kind; I'll never, never find A better friend than Old Dog Tray!" How often we say one to another, "It is good to be missed." But no one has ever voiced that universal feeling of the heart as perfectly as has Foster in his popular song, _Do They Miss Me at Home?_ "Do they miss me at home, do they miss me? 'Twould be an assurance most dear, To know that this moment some lov'd one Were saying, 'I wish he were here'; To feel that the group at the fireside Were thinking of me as I roam; Oh, yes, 'twould be joy beyond measure To know that they miss me at home." [Illustration: "_Still longin' for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home_" ] Foster was a most prolific writer, producing between two and three hundred popular songs, furnishing both the words and the music. Among his best known war songs are _We've a Million in the_ _Field_, _Stand by the Flag_, _For the Dear Old Flag I Die_, and _Was my Brother in the Battle?_ His most famous song, however, and one which he hoped would rival _Home, Sweet Home_,--a song of which the soldiers amid the loneliness and homesickness of camp never grew weary--was _The Old Folks at Home_. For the time it has been before the public, it is probably the best known song in the world. Four hundred thousand copies of it were sold the first few years after it was written. The tune has crossed all oceans and become a favorite with martial bands of music in every region of the earth.